Gaelic & Scots Project for Young Creatives Runs for Second Year

For the second year running, the project Sgrìobh | Scrieve will give two young emerging artists the opportunity to create their own songs in Gaelic and Scots. The artists will then perform them at Eden Court’s summer music festival, Under Canvas, on 7 August.

The project was set up last year in partnership with Eden Court and Tobar an Dualchais/Kist o Riches (TAD/KOR) and it allocates time for the artists to explore the TAD/KOR website in depth as inspiration for creating new work and performing it.

Isla Scott from the Isle of Harris has been selected as the Gaelic artist for the project. Isla is a native Gaelic speaker and a singer-songwriter who is currently studying at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. She represented Scotland at the ‘New Celtic Song’ competition at the Pan Celtic International Festival in 2023, with her own composition. Isla is committed to the preservation of Gaelic language and culture, particularly through music.

Isla stated: “When I saw the Sgrìobh/Scrieve project being advertised, it seemed like an excellent opportunity for me to develop my writing and research skills as a Gaelic songwriter. I regularly use the TAD/KOR website and thought that the project would give me the chance to use it in new ways. I was also very excited about the possibility of performing somewhere new and to audiences I may not have reached before.

I’m very interested in taking a traditional song and re-telling it from a different point of view within a contemporary setting, and I look forward to delving deeper into the recordings to do this.”

Isla Scott, the Gaelic artist selected for Sgrìobh/Scrieve this year, who will be performing at Under Canvas.

The artist chosen for the Scots leid is Arwen Scott, a singer-songwriter from rural Aberdeenshire, who writes in both Doric and English. They are a recent graduate of composition from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and a current master’s student in theatre at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Through their work, they retell old and forgotten stories, hoping to bring them back to life through song and music.

Arwen said: “As a Scots speaker, and specifically a Doric speaker, I was so excited to see the opportunity for Sgrìobh/Scrieve come up - especially one that included writing a new song. Through my undergraduate studies and latterly my postgraduate studies, I’ve been trying to incorporate more and more Doric/Scots language and Scottish stories into my work within music and theatre, and so it felt like applying for Scrieve would allow me to work with this more. I think this feels especially important to me as, due to studying out with Scotland, I can sometimes feel disconnected and I’m hopeful that through this project I’ll be able to connect more with my Scottish heritage, stories from Doric, and learn new ways to bring these into my work.

During the project, I’m interested in exploring folk stories and creatures, particularly the stories told and carried by the Scottish travelling communities.”

Scots artist Arwen Scott who will be performing at Under Canvas as part of the Sgrìobh/Scrieve project.

Emily MacDonald, Gaelic Project Manager at Eden Court commented: "Eden Court are delighted to collaborate with Tobar an Dualchais/Kist o Riches in these exciting new commissions celebrating Scotland’s rich linguistic and cultural heritage. Drawing on resources together, it’s great to be able to support two emerging artists to create bold, contemporary new music that is rooted in Scots and Gaelic traditions."

Flòraidh Forrest, Director of TAD/KOR, remarked: “We were very pleased with the outcome of last year’s project, with our chosen artists Anndra Cumming and Lucy Beth. They have had many opportunities to perform their work since Under Canvas 2024, and Lucy will be performing her Doric poetry composition ‘Ma Name is Isabelle’ at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

We are confident that Isla and Arwen will also create something very special using the TAD/KOR resources to inform their creativity. As emerging artists, we hope that their performance at Eden Court will give them the chance to bring their work to new audiences and lead to other opportunities for them.”

There will be two performances by Isla and Arwen at Under Canvas on Thursday 7 August, one at 4.15pm and the other at 7.15pm. Tickets are available at https://eden-court.co.uk/event/sgriobh-scrieve

The project received funding from Bòrd na Gàidhlig and Creative Scotland’s Wee Grants for Creativity in the Scots Leid.

Tobar an Dualchais/Kist o Riches is an online resource dedicated to the presentation and promotion of audio recordings of Scotland’s cultural heritage. Its principal content is songs, music, history, poetry, traditions and stories, recorded from the 1930s onwards. The website contains material from three archives: The School of Scottish Studies, The Canna Collection and BBC Radio nan Gàidheal, and there are recordings in Gaelic, Scots and English. There are currently over 47,000 recordings on the website.

Under Canvas is now in its seventh year and runs from 2 July- 23 August, with sessions taking place from Wednesday to Sunday each week. The festival offers a diverse range of music and special events, with music sessions spanning folk, trad, jazz, indie, contemporary, world music and more.